“Well,” sez she, “my father spent all my mother’s money on horse-racin’, save a few thousand which he had invested for her, and she felt wuz safe, but he took that to run away with a bally girl, and squandered it all on her and died on the town. My eldest sister’s husband beat her with a poker, and throwed her out of a three-story front in San Francisco, and she landin’ on a syringea tree wuz saved to git a divorce from him and also from her second and third husbands for cruelty, after which she gave up matrimony and opened a boarding-house, bitter in spirit, but a good calculator. I lived with her when a young girl, and imbibed 17 her dislike for matrimony, which wuz helped further by sad experiences of my own, which is needless to particularize. (I hearn afterwards that she had three disappointments runnin’, bein’ humbly and poor in purse.)
“And now,” sez she, “I am as well grounded against matrimony as any woman can be, and my whole energies are aimed on teaching Dorothy the same belief I hold.”
“Well,” sez I, “your folks have suffered dretful from men and I don’t wonder you feel as you do. But what I am a goin’ to do to be separated from my husband durin’ this voyage is more than I can tell.” And I groaned a deep holler groan.
“Why, I haven’t told you half,” sez she. “All of my sisters but one had trouble with their husbands. Robert’s step-ma wuz the only one who had a good husband, but he died before they’d been married a year, and she follered him in six months, leaving twins, who died also, and I took Robert, to whom I had got attached, to the boarding-house, and took care on him until he wuz sent away to school and college. His pa left plenty of money,” sez she, “and a big fortune when he came of age, which he has spent in the foolish way I have told you of, or a great part of it.”
Well, at this juncture we wuz interrupted, and didn’t resoom the conversation until some days afterwards, though I wuz dretful interested in the big manufactory of Robert Strong’s, that big co-working scheme. (I had hearn Thomas J. commend it warmly.)
At last the day come for me to start. I waked up feelin’ a strange weight on my heart. I had dremp Philury had sot the soap stun on my chest. But no soap stun wuz ever so hard and heavy as my grief. Josiah and I wuz to be parted! Could it be so? Could I live through it? He wuz out in the wood-house kitchen pretendin’ to file a saw. File a saw before breakfast! He took that gratin’ job to hide his groans; he wuz weepin’; his red eyes betrayed him. Philury got a good breakfast which we couldn’t eat. My trunk wuz 18 packed and in the democrat. The neighborin’ wimmen brung me warm good-byes and bokays offen their house plants, and sister Sypher sent me some woosted flowers, which I left to home, and some caraway seed to nibble on my tower which I took.
She that wuz Arvilly Lanfeare brought me a bottle of bam made out of the bark of the bam of Gilead tree, to use in case I should get bruised or smashed on the train, and also two pig’s bladders blowed up, which she wanted me to wear constant on the water to help me float. She had painted on one of ’em the Jonesville meetin’-house, thinkin’, I spoze, the steeple might bring lofty thoughts to me in hurrycains or cyclones. And on the other one she had painted in big letters the title of the book she is agent for––“The Twin Crimes of America: Intemperance and Greed!” I thought it wuz real cunning in Arvilly to combine so beautifully kindness and business. There is so much in advertising. They looked real well, but I didn’t see how I wuz goin’ to wear ’em over my bask waist. Arvilly said she wanted to go with me the worst kind. Says she:
“I hain’t felt so much like goin’ anywhere sense I deserted.” (Arvilly did enlist in the Cuban army, and deserted, and they couldn’t touch her for it––of which more anon.)
And I sez to her: “I wish you could go, Arvilly; I believe it would do you good after what you have went through.”
Well, the last minute come and Ury took us to the train. Josiah went with me, but he couldn’t have driv no more than a mournin’ weed could.